


Coming Apart at the Seams (Oppa, Oppa)

by upallnightstrungtight



Category: Super Junior, Super Junior-M
Genre: Demisexual Character, Domination/submission, Established Relationship, Experimental, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Masochism, Other, gender identity unclear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:58:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upallnightstrungtight/pseuds/upallnightstrungtight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he needs to be her, even if it’s only for an hour. If it’s a game, it doesn’t have to be real. Everything blurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Apart at the Seams (Oppa, Oppa)

**Author's Note:**

> This contains almost certainly unhealthy ways of viewing and dealing with gender. This is not an endorsement of gendering behaviors, clothing, or other items.

Today was one of those days in a desert of them stretching out to the horizon.

Certain things were easier when hated than loved. When he was hated, it hurt like hell, but what they wanted was painfully clear - go away. Now that he’s loved, it’s a constant battle to figure it out, changing from moment to moment. Laughing’s the safest; if they’re laughing, they don't want anything else. Being loved is precarious and fickle, a tightrope of expectations.

She’s a mishmash of the things he’s curious about and the things he’s ashamed of and the things that don’t fit anywhere else in him, that make no sense, can’t be put together in the puzzle. This is the first time he’s seen her in the mirror. Her eyes are dark and sultry, bold with the eyeliner she smudges on, knowing she looks good and merely lacks convenient admirers. She smoothes her still-unshapen hair down over her forehead and lets loose a predatory gaze. He panics, putting her away, scrubbing off the eyeliner. Breathing too fast, slow down, slow down. _That’s not supposed to happen. It’s not what I’m here for._

He’d thought that once he cut his hair short again, these mismatched, blurry feelings would be gone. It’s suddenly clear that that’s not the case. Every year that’s passed lulled him into complacency; she’s merely been biding her time. He tries to remember what he used to do to exorcise her, and realizes that the answer is absolutely anything at all.

********

He spends weeks hoping it’ll pass. Why weeks would work when years didn’t wasn’t exactly a rational decision, but he was maybe possibly definitely freaking out. Regardless, the pressure only built up like an itch just under his skin. Relieved beyond words that he’d gotten around to renting an apartment, he found that it wasn’t too difficult to get an eyeliner pencil, yet significantly more difficult to use it. The staring match continues until it shakes right out of his hands. She finally bursts out like lava, grabbing it confidently to make neat, careful lines.

Looking back, she wasn’t really dormant this whole time. It took him a long time to figure out what was going on because she has more attitude than he does, even, aggressive and no-nonsense. How could he have connected that with the desire for softness, to be looked at in a different way that defied description? It’s completely jumbled up. He may be out of place sometimes, but she’s downright _unconventional_. He builds her, but she’s also been there all along, picking up the pieces he drops.

If he’s going to keep her separate, and, really, there’s no other option, she needs a name. Thus, it’s Alicia who holds all his jagged edges. It’s a bit backwards, perhaps, legitimizing her existence with a name, but the alternative has risks he’s unwilling to bear. He tells himself that he didn't imagine Ryeowook saying it, over and over, didn't see his beautiful mouth sounding out the syllables, ah-lee-sha. He’s never been very good at making the things he tells himself stick for long. _This is a **disaster**._

********

The truth is that he doesn’t trust perfection. The varnish has to wear off sometime. The truth is that some things don’t make sense, and they never will. The truth is that he’s already had all he can take of people telling him what to do, but it doesn’t matter because it’s not going to stop anytime soon. The truth is that he knows what it is to be a different person in each language. He’s been constricted by this one for so long that he needs to break it, turn it inside out. The truth is that there’re so many pieces of gender left lying around to play with and no wiggle room in his box. The reality is that he has to keep reapplying the paint or it’ll chip.

********

He’s really glad he knows how to use private mode and a simple proxy add-on because some of the searches he had to do to even figure out what it is he’s after were absolutely mortifying. After some cursory translation attempts, simple words seem to be the way to go rather than obscure five-syllable compounds.  _Yikes. How do other international couples handle this? Is there a guide or something? “Language Barriers in the Bedroom: Volume 3, Kink” – Yeah, right, not awkward at **all**._ They’d agreed, early on, that honesty was very important when it was just them, so here he is, trying to explain something that he doesn’t fully understand. Ryeowook tries his best, but his English is almost certainly not up to the task at hand. Henry’s not at all sure that he can do this in _any_ language.

She had to come out for the conversation to even happen. He knows that Ryeowook watches him like a hawk, so he surely notices the tilt of her hips as she puts her hands on them, her elbows jutting out, the way she leans forward and towers over him without effort. She doesn’t hold anything back, laying out what she wants and how she wants it unsparingly. He’s relaxed and attentive, taking everything in with an easy grace. It’s surprising, sweet like cake in her stomach. It’s even sweeter when he says her name the way she wants him to, says that he can do what she needs. She takes his hands to guide and demonstrate, drawing her map under his touch, and he says it again, affirms his understanding of more than just what she’s showing him. When every embarrassing detail has been let out, Henry’s had all he can take and pushes her back in, slumping his shoulders and scrubbing his hands over his face. He feels like he’s been scoured with sandpaper. _Why me? Why am I like this?_

“Henry-yah,” Ryeowook starts, gentle, affectionate, taking his hands in his own, and how does he _do_ that? How does already he know that she’s stepped back when he’s only just met her? Forget hawks, they’re downright oblivious compared to him. “I don’t love your name or your clothes. I love _you_. Nothing else matters.” He pats Henry’s arm gently, chuckling. “It’s cute how innocent you think I am, though.”

“Come on,” Henry groans, “you know that’s not what I meant.” He can already tell that he’ll never hear the end of it, but with pressure on his neck pulling him down into a kiss, it doesn’t matter. He sinks to his knees and touches skin-warm metal and it really doesn’t matter.

********

Some bizarre coffee commercial is playing when Ryeowook suddenly claps his hands together. “I know just what you need.” His self-satisfied smile is something Henry knows better than to get in the way of. Besides, his track record’s pretty damn good. Thus, there’s a closet with a makeup kit and clingy black fabric and a few other choice items, wrapped up in a travel blanket, packaged and packaged and packaged until it appears to be a leftover moving box. Henry never asks where Alicia’s things come from. If allowing himself to be taken care of is a flaw, it’s one he’ll happily live with.

She comes out sometimes at home, inasmuch as here can be called home, throwing on t-shirts that just barely cover the tops of her thighs. She _likes_ dressing up, but it’s not the same without the thrill of an audience, someone to bounce the energy off of. Someone to dip her back and run reverent hands all over her. Someone to _appreciate_ it, to look at her and want so badly that it’s unbearable.

********

Once he finishes with her lip gloss, perfect pale pink, she blinks slowly, then looks at him with all the heat she feels. “Op _pa_ ,” she says, not because she’s demure, but because she’s _ruthless_ , knowing the weight of it without truly understanding. He always makes this funny little gasp and puts his hand on her shoulder, gripping tightly. She’s never entirely sure why, suspects that he plays this role just for her, but there’s also his spray of quills to consider. Maybe she’s not the only one with jagged edges getting something out of this. She feels a tiny shudder run through her; she starts this game because she loves it.

“Alicia,” he says, identifying and marking all at once. “You’re mine.” He leans down to bite at her bottom lip, then grips her hair at the back of her head and smashes his mouth against hers. Their lips slide against each other, wonderfully slippery, and he presses in, running his tongue over her teeth before prodding her to respond. His grip tightens, so she sucks, dragging the first moan of the night out of him and right into her, moving through her as she tries to entice him to give more, take more, just _more_. He pulls away with a light slap to her cheek. It pushes a breathy “ah” out of her; it hurts just right, so _good_ , **fuck**. His hands grasp her shoulders and he none-too-gently pushes her down onto the bed. His casual cruelty is exactly what she wants.

She watches him go and put the tube away, very careful the way he is with all her possessions, handling cloth and cases and brushes with a graceful touch. She’s more than content to crane her head up a bit and watch him from where he put her. The tight jeans always brighten her day. Because he’s so gentle and delicate-looking, she gets a thrill out of making him push her around, leading the dance with fire in his eyes. Alicia is perpetually on the offensive against the expected.

She turns over to lean on her elbows, knees splayed out. “Oppa, are you looking?” In a moment of blur, the him outside of the game feels humiliated that she latched onto that word, ashamed of all the attraction to power differentials that she holds, especially one so blatant. A firewall comes down and a heatwave brings back the waver of the mirage. The only him is the one above her.

“Yes,” she hears, low and husky. She slides her knees farther apart.

“Do you want me? Wanna be inside me?” He hums in assent, a sort of “mmmm” like he wants to devour her. She likes the panties he bought for her, cut a bit high but nicely emphasizing the curves of her ass. She slides them down, throbbing as she thinks about his hungry stare roaming over her, wanting her, wanting to take her. “Oppa, please, I need you,” she begs. He makes her nice and wet and ready for him between nibbling her hips and along the backs of her thighs. Her elbows are tense and her arms are trembling. She whimpers. Deep breaths, steadying herself as he enters her. Hurting her in the ways she wants it and avoiding the ways she doesn’t is… it’s something he’s actually very good at. But that stays here.

She can feel him pulling back and herself thinking more than she wants to. Her face flushes, her makeup is starting to smear and she’s being turned inside out. As he slides back in, his hand grabs her chest, scratching neat lines down to the neck of her dress. “Fuck, yes,” she hisses, too overwhelmed with sensation to keep her native tongue at bay. With a hard tug, he rolls it down to her waist, then pinches one nipple and slooowly twists. When she rolls her hips back against him, he lets go. They’ve played so many rounds of this game that he’s fluent in her body language. Still, there was a certain charm to the feedback being hurt out of her, and she misses it sometimes.

She likes the way the stockings feel sliding over her skin, likes how her knee slips on the bed in them, making him smack her ass before shoving her thigh back where he wants it. He likes waiting for her to slip up before he starts, each strike designed to catch her off guard, and by the end of it, she can feel the throbbing of a tint nearly as pink as her lips. The aftershocks are nearly as good as the moment of impact, drawing out pleasurable tingling and twitching from her. Pain aside, he’s a gentleman and always makes sure she comes first, releasing the itch and shrinking her boundaries back into their usual shape. It’s the beginning of the end.

Simple, soothing lotion is the middle. It may not be strictly necessary, but it’s pleasant. She basks in her empty mind for as long as it lasts. Next, her clothes come off for the first time. He checks them carefully, fussy, even. She sits up, lethargic, all slow blinking and wide, lazy smiles. Finally, the makeup, the last trace of her, is absorbed with a meltingly kind touch. He’s as careful with him as he was careless with her. Ryeowook’s hands frame his face, gazing at him with love he suspects he doesn’t quite deserve.

“My beautiful Henry," his darling says in lilting English, removing and peeling back all the layers and they blur back together, she and he, all the scattered parts of him that he keeps stashed at different airport gates. The game is over. He can breathe again.

When there’s time, Henry joins him in the shower afterwards, pressing close to him and getting in the way as much as helping. When there’s more time, they eat together, too, quiet and content. When there’s a lot more time, they’re back on the bed, Ryeowook slowly sinking down onto his cock, head thrown back and breathtakingly gorgeous. It’s been too long since there’s been time like this, enough for all of it, for the games he needs and his lover’s gasps and grip on himself. Ryeowook leans forward for a messy kiss, his tongue darting into Henry’s mouth as he slowly rocks his hips, the puff of his breath warming one glowing cheek. His knuckles drag a leisurely path between them.

“Love you,” Henry says as he pulls away. “You see all of me,” as he skims his fingertips down Ryeowook’s back. “Thank you for taking care of me,” trailing up his sides with feather-light fingernails. “Thank you for everything,” as he grazes his teeth along the column of his throat. This giving back is no hardship, easy to fit in between the sparks of pleasure that squeeze his eyes shut and the soft gasps that pop them open, and he’s happy to do it. Happy to be here, just the two of them. Just _happy_. Henry places his hands on Ryeowook’s hips, smiles up at him and wishes that tomorrow would never come.


End file.
